A sedan type vehicle is generally formed with a trunk (opening) at the rear of the vehicle to contain baggage, which has an openable lid, and can be locked by a locking device. FIG. 18 is a schematic view of a vehicle trunk provided with a prior art trunk locking device.
As shown in FIG. 18, a trunk 12 is formed at the rear of a vehicle body 11, which has an openable trunk lid 14 supported by a pair of hinges 13. The trunk lid 14 can be locked by a trunk locking device.
The prior art trunk locking device comprises a lock 101 mounted to the trunk lid 14 and a striker 102 mounted to the vehicle body 11. A rotatable latch (not shown) of the lock 101 engages with the striker 102 to bind the trunk lid 14 in a closed condition. On the other hand, binding between the latch and the striker 102 can be released by an opener lever 104 connected through a cable 103 to unlock the trunk lid 14.
In the above-described prior art trunk locking device, to close the trunk lid 14, the trunk lid 14 is pressed down from the opened condition shown in FIG. 18 to cause the latch to engage with the striker 102, thereby closing the trunk lid 14. However, the opening of the trunk 12 is peripherally provided with a rubber-made sealing member 15 in order to prevent baggage contained in the trunk 12 from wetting, and when the trunk lid 14 is closed, the trunk lid 14 must be pressed down against a repulsive force of the sealing member 15, which requires a fairly strong force and is tedious.
Furthermore, when the trunk lid 14 is closed with a strong force, a big closing noise is set up, causing an unpleasant feeling of passengers.
To eliminate such problems, there have heretofore been proposed various devices in which the latch and striker are engaged in the full-closing position of the trunk lid and, with the latch and striker engaged, the striker is moved down to achieve full closing of the trunk lid. This type of trunk locking devices include those which are disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication 63-6384/1988, Japanese Patent Publication Laid-open 61-183588/1986, and Japanese Patent Publication Laid-open 63-312484/1988.
However, such trunk locking devices form a single unit comprising a motor, a mechanism, and the striker, making the device large in size and requiring a large space, with less flexibility in mounting to the vehicle body.
Since, in this trunk locking device, the motor and the striker are directly connected, and the striker is moved solely by the motor, there has been a problem in that, if the motor malfunctions to become unoperatable when, for example, the trunk is open, that is, the striker is positioned in the upper position, the trunk lid becomes unclosable.
Furthermore, since, in this trunk locking device, the lid is fully closed by automatically moving the striker by the motor, there is a risk of the hand or the like being caught between the lid and the vehicle body when the lid is moved.